Sally turned towards the gate.  “What’s that to me?” she said, fiercely.  “I’m not her, and she’s not me.  Stay here, mother.  I’ll be back soon.”

“Well, I’m goin’ to set right thar on that log outside the gate, an’ not budge one inch till you come back, Sally.  If you wait too long, though, I’ll come after you.  Oh, Sally, I’m awful afeerd—­I don’t know what at, but I’m afeerd.”

Together the two passed through the gate, and then, leaving her mother at the log, Sally hastened through the darkness towards the main road, several hundred yards away.  Mrs. Dawson sat down and folded her hands tightly in her lap and waited.  After a few minutes she heard the heat of a horse’s hoofs on the clay road, and when it ceased she knew her child was demanding and learning her fate.  Fifteen minutes passed.  The beat of hoofs was resumed, and soon afterwards Sally Dawson came slowly through the darkness, her dress dragging over the dewy grass.  She seemed to have forgotten that her mother was waiting for her, and was about to pass on to the house, when Mrs. Dawson spoke up.

“Heer I am, Sally; what did he say?”

The girl sat down on the log beside her mother.  There was a desperate glare in her eyes that had never been in eyes more youthful.  Her lips were drawn tight, her small hands clinched.

“It’s every bit true,” she said, under her breath.  “He’s goin’ with Lizzie, regular.  He admitted he had an engagement with her tonight.  Mother, it’s all up with me.  He’s jest tired of me.  I don’t deserve any pity for bein’ such a fool, but it’s awful—­awful—­awful!”

Mrs. Dawson caught her breath suddenly, so sharp was her own pain, but she still strove to console her daughter.

“He’s railly not wuth thinkin’ about, darlin’; do—­do try to forget ’im.  It may look like a body never could git over a thing like that, but I reckon a pusson kin manage to sort o’ bear it better, after awhile, than they kin right at the start.  Sally, I’m goin’ to tell you a secret.  I’d ‘a’ told you before this but I ’lowed you was too young to heer the like.  It’s about me ‘n’ yore pa—­some’n’ you never dreamt could ‘a’ happened.  Mebby it ’ll give you courage, fer if a old woman like me kin put up with sech humiliation, shorely a young one kin.  Sally, do you remember, when you was a leetle, tiny girl, that thar was a Mis’ Talley, a tall, slim, yaller-headed woman, who come out from town to board one summer over at Hill’s?  Well, she never had nothin’ much to occupy ‘er mind with durin’ the day, an’ she used to take ’er fancy-work an’ set in the shady holler at the gum spring, whar yore pa went to water his hoss.  Of course, she never keerd a cent fer him, but I reckon to pass the time away she got to makin’ eyes at him.  Anyway, it driv’ ’im plumb crazy.  I never knowed about it till the summer was mighty nigh over, an’ I wouldn’t ‘a’ diskivered it then if I hadn’t ‘a’ noticed that he had made powerful little headway ploughin’